Wartezone 15 (2025)
Collaboration with Alexandra Belokon
Hosted by Neu Workshop in Munich
Wartezone 15 is a sound sculpture built from recordings taken in the waiting area of the Ausländerbehörde. The work isolates and manipulates the sterile beeping that marks the calling of each new case number—a sound that is both mundane and charged with authority. Processed using techniques drawn from Steve Goodman’s theory of sonic warfare, the beep is rendered into a low-frequency, spatially invasive force, emphasizing its capacity to unsettle, to pressure, and to impose presence.
The sound is played back through aluminium plates, which are embedded with exciters and transformed into resonant surfaces. Each plate bears an acid-etched image of the German eagle, a symbol of state authority. The sound vibrates the plates directly, turning the state symbol into a site of acoustic tension. These vibrations extend beyond audibility, becoming tactile, felt as much as heard, framing the sound as a medium of surveillance and control.
Programmed in SuperCollider, the sound events occur at randomized intervals, resisting predictable rhythm and thereby evoking the disorientation and uncertainty of the bureaucratic process. The result is a sculptural environment where sonic force, institutional symbolism, and spatial perception converge in a shifting expression of authority.
Documentation: Diogo Frazão